TBILISI. Dec 5 (Interfax) - Georgian diplomats are in touch with Germany as regards the investigation into the murder of Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin, the Georgian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
"We remain in touch with our German partners to get more information. We will act in coordination with them," the ministry told journalists, without adding any other details.
The opposition party European Georgia has accused the government of ignoring the killing of Khangoshvili.
"It's just amazing how demonstratively our authorities are ignoring this story," Giorgi Kandelaki, a Georgian parliamentarian and a European Georgia member, told journalists.
He recalled an assassination attempt on Khangoshvili in Tbilisi in 2015 and pointed out that the Georgian prosecutors have still not solved that crime.
"Khangoshvili was targeted for an armed attack on Zurab Zhvania Square in the center of Tbilisi in 2015, in which eight bullets hit him," Kandelaki said, adding that he suspected that Russia was behind that attack.
Khangoshvili had to leave Georgia precisely after that attack, he said.
Former Georgian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Giorgi Badridze also criticized the Georgian government for displaying no interest in the killing of Khangoshvili, a man coming from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge.
"It is [the desire] not to anger Russia that explains the actions, or to be more precise, inaction of the Georgian authorities," Badridze told journalists in commenting on a statement by Zurab Khangoshvili, Zelimkhan's brother, that no one from the Georgian Foreign Ministry had contacted him on the matter.
Georgian media reported that Khangoshvili fought for the militants in the conflict in Chechnya, was among the first field commanders, then moved to Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, and was involved in an operation in Lapankuri in 2012, in which Georgian security forces destroyed a Chechen militant unit. Georgian special services then engaged Khangoshvili as a mediator, but when the talks failed, he disappeared.
Several video cameras caught the attack on Khangoshvili in the center of Tbilisi in 2015, but the investigation has never found the hitman. After the assault, Khangoshvili moved to Germany, where he applied for asylum but was refused.
As reported earlier, a cyclist twice shot Khangoshvili in Berlin on August 23 while he was on his way to Friday prayers in Kleiner Tiergarten park, Moabit neighborhood. Khangoshvili died on the spot.
A Russian citizen has been detained on suspicion of killing Khangoshvili.
Georgian prosecutors said on Wednesday they believed an order to kill Khangoshvili could have come either from Russian federal authorities or the Chechen administration.
The Georgian Federal Foreign Office announced on Wednesday that it declared two Russian diplomats posted in Germany personae non grata due to Russia's inadequate cooperation with the German detectives in probing the crime.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it would take Moscow "a little time" to formulate response measures after Germany expelled two Russian diplomats.